wanting is not the same as having
by Kitty Sorceress
Summary: It's the thrill of chase he's after and he's not sure that this chase is one he wants to make. He knows what happens in the end.


They end up at the open-til-2am Chinese place, Sherlock nibbling on a spring roll and John enjoying the Mongolian lamb as if there wasn't a dead cabbie lying in the morgue thanks to him. It's stupidly companionable considering their acquaintance has barely reached the 36-hour mark. John supposes it's because that's what solving a series of murders in one fell swoop must do. Sherlock deduces that John is going to take the room, sight unseen.

Sherlock decides to experiment.

(And partly, it's because he's found a connection here and he loves the euphoria that surrounds the initial spark of interest, the chase and the adventure, the pursuit of the uncharacteristic romance.)

He orders another beer for John, another glass of water for himself. All elegant long fingers and twisting sarcastic smile, Sherlock tells more stories about his life in that moment than he'll ever again over the course of his friendship with John Watson. Most of these stories are about Mycroft. John laughs all the way back to his dreary temporary lodgings, while Sherlock becomes a comfortable and weighted warmth next to him in the taxi.

"So, you'll take the room then?" Sherlock trains his voice with the slightest hint of earnest hope as John opens the taxi door.

"Sure," he grins. "I could do a lot worse." He could do a lot better too, but that's neither here nor there.

"Will you take it now?" That makes John pause. "Why delay the inevitable? You must have only one – no – two suitcases. You could be settled by sunrise."

Sherlock is fairly sure that it's the earnestness in his voice that convinces John. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or adrenaline, or attraction. It's of no consequence now. Whatever it is, it's more than enough to make John open the door a little wider again and gesture for Sherlock to join him on the pavement.

They spend the next hour gathering the few possessions that John can call his own. Sherlock puts a surprising amount of effort in laying clothes in suitcases with care - chances are though that they'll just end up tossed into the nearest wardrobe at the other end.

Sherlock is collecting the last of John's items from the bathroom when he sets his first experimental untruth.

"Regarding the room, I'll warn you that it's not quite ready to be lived in."

John stops in his tracks and pulls a face. "Then why on earth –"

"It's currently, temporarily, a biohazard. Molly's having someone come next week to tidy it up. Don't worry, there's plenty of room in the master bedroom. Two beds easily fit."

"Oh." There is a brief moment, in which he sighs and hangs his head while pinching the ridge of his nose, before John speaks again. "Right."

Sherlock grins with a manic and altogether too-eager grin. He worries for a moment that it appears forced, but John is picking up one of the suitcases and it's clear that, for now at least, the ruse is undetected.

He's already beginning to regret this before they've even walked through the door of 221B Baker St. It's the thrill of chase he's after and he's not sure that this chase is one he wants to make. He knows what happens in the end.

John doesn't have to be Sherlock to notice that there is, in fact, only one bed in the master bedroom.

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, ready with an oration on the relative merits of a king size bed for a man of his height, on how two beds could be procured with ease, on how a single bed each would be highly impractical, but is cut short by his new flatmate.

"It's fine. I don't want to hear it." John shoves his suitcase into the emptiest corner of the bedroom, which for the most part is littered with documents, clothing and abandoned mugs of stone-cold tea, and lowers himself gracelessly, belly-first and fully-clothed, onto the bed.

It didn't even occur to Sherlock that, being almost 3am, John might be tired beyond caring.

This is greatly advantageous.

Following suit, Sherlock, removing only his coat, lies down next to John. He falls asleep as the first light of dawn is spreading its dreary fingers through the horizontal slats of the blinds, lulled by the sound of John's dream-laboured breath and his own anxiety-ridden heartbeat.

They are awoken at 11 the next morning by a tea-and-scones-laden-tray-bearing Mrs Hudson.

Sherlock can't help but feel a certain pleasure at John's embarrassment of being found entangled in the long limbs of his flatmate – a situation not altogether unsurprising, as Sherlock does miraculously manage to take up the entire space of the bed in a single sprawling yawn.

But embarrassment is soon forgotten in the excitement that follows – a message from Lestrade, another case so soon! They are out of bed, dressed and across town before the mugs of tea are even halfway as cold as their abandoned comrades surrounding them.

And life is so much better than good.

Things become habit, then routine. Sharing a bed every night is as usual as severed body parts in the fridge and running half-way across London towards or away from a murderer. Almost a month passes before John even asks when Molly might be coming around to make the second bedroom habitable; Sherlock just brushes him off with a (spontaneous) smile and a (even more unexpected) (probably toxic) (really quite edible) plate of pasta, skirting around the fact that the room had been safe from the start, that the plastic covering on the door was hastily constructed from items scrounged/stolen/secreted away from Anderson's forensics set-up.

Over lunch the next day with Sarah from the surgery, John jokes that he's falling in love with the strange man and Sherlock can tell from the nervous look on his flatmate's face that night that the date had been some sort of success. He feels left-out, which is a new feeling. He usually wouldn't care, but this is undoing his good work.

This is what he does. He chooses a target, a project. He lures them and schools them, he delights in their attention to him, by their awe and their burgeoning desire – desire that he can't understand, won't understand, wants to understand and wants to ignore.

He wants... he wants to encircle, enfold, embrace. His whole chest aches with the humanness he otherwise wishes that he would lack. And as he draws them in, the feeling tumbles and tosses and intensifies to the edge, to the precipice, the point of no return.

But they always need to declare themselves in the end and the spell is broken. He casts them aside, unless they maintain some use – like Molly, or Lestrade, or Sebastian, and goes back to his clinical and uncaring _modus operandi_.

Sarah and John don't last, at least not in the romantic sense. Things take a noted turn from attempts at seduction to chummy DVD evenings on _Sherlock's_ sofa and laughter and wine and...

Was that a look?

Sherlock begins to think that perhaps his plan is not yet foiled.

There's something new and completely unexpected about this chase. John isn't giving in as fast as the others have. This doesn't seem to be an issue of orientation – he confirmed John's bisexual tendencies with a quick browse of the 'hidden' folder of pornography on his laptop. Nor is it a dislike of character, a disinterest in appearance, fear or resistance.

And, to be entirely honest, Sherlock isn't sure why he chose John in the first place. He's not Sherlock's usual _type_ – useful, easily led, self-depreciating. He was handed to him on a metaphorical silver platter, the most suitable flatmate from the start, and who would have thought that possible?

He wonders if there's something deeper to this and he realises, in a flash of illogic on a soggy Tuesday, that this might be what people look for in those long-term, committed relationships. He ends up walking around in the rain for three hours, losing his sense of time, his sense of place, gaining a new sense of self.

When he gets home, he can't look at John, can't say a word. He barricades himself in the bathroom. He runs the very coldest shower possible and when that fails, he turns the shower as hot as he can, filling the bathroom with steam and attempting to drown out his moaning with the sound of running water. He knows that he fails when he hears John turn the telly up louder.

That night, the king size bed seems much too small. Sherlock lays there, silent, stunned, arms and legs locked, his whole body like a lamppost awkwardly edging closer to the edge of the bed.

(A stupid metaphor, but apt.)

And John – stupid John, dependable John, faithful John, oatmeal-woolly-jumper-clad John – moves closer and pulls Sherlock unceremoniously into the centre of the bed. They're facing each other, hands interwoven, John's head resting against Sherlock's chest, ankles intertwined. Sherlock is too shocked to resist or complain or comment or breathe or...

"I know that room's been safe from the start," John states matter-of-factly, his arms new and nice and not unwelcome around Sherlock. "I figured it out after the Banker case. I found the forensics kit shoved in the back of the pantry. I don't mind, you know. I think I understand, now."

Then John laughs and the vibration rumbles through his chest and pulls Sherlock's attention more drastically than any murder can. For all of the chasing and the wanting and the looming inevitability of having to let go, Sherlock is filled with an inexplicable bliss at the having.

This is new and this is wonderful. This is brilliant.

Then John kisses him, puts his hand just _there_.

Now it's even better.


End file.
